


jamais vu

by Morie_mordant



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternative Universe - X-Men, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining, Sheithlentines 2018, everybody is a mutant, keith has rogue-like powers, shiro is similar to wolverine, some mind fucking, team voltron are x-men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 14:53:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13860066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morie_mordant/pseuds/Morie_mordant
Summary: "I was running down the road, the fear was all I knew. I was looking for a soul that's real — then I ran into you."





	jamais vu

**Author's Note:**

> Summary is a line from U2 - Cedarwood Road

The truth is, Keith would do anything for Shiro’s smile. He doesn’t smile as much as he used to, and when he does, it’s not as broad and open, blinding, it doesn’t quite reach his eyes, but it’s reassuring and kind.

It is haunting to see a cruel smirk on his lips instead, his brows bent in mockery, his eyes glowing yellow and predatory, in bloodlust.

How dare she?

She squats next to him, still wearing Shiro’s face, explains with wicked fascination, still using Shiro’s voice, how it is her who has made an ordinary man with an unimaginative quirk into an omega level mutant, almost a god, a weapon of the new generation. She keeps going on and on about how she has pushed him to his limits.

Then Shiro’s face twists in a frown, and it comes out almost like a hiss:

 

“But they took him away from me. As if they can change something. The universe was set in motion.”

 

She’s angry, because her Champion was the peak of her experiments, the marriage of science and magic. All others have died, unable to recover, their bodies rejecting the forced modifications – or they have been not strong enough to hold their own against him. Team Voltron has managed to stop her ugly miserable abominations. A truly mad scientist, digressed into delirium after a ten thousand years of being stripped of her memories, alone in her vast powers and the darkness, and the burning desire to obtain Voltron, no longer remembering why she has wanted it so badly to begin with – she just could not stop, resorting to modifying even her own husband, Zarkon.

Keith loathes her. She has tortured and killed so many, she has used her powers to brainwash Shiro and forced him to bid her will, to torture and kill as well, in order to create a creature in her image. Shiro has a healing factor, and Keith has seen with his own eyes how various cuts and burns quickly disappear from his skin, leaving no scars, no marks, no traces, leaving just smooth skin. And how scarred his body has been when they have met again, when Keith has rescued him from the Iverson’s laboratories. When he got Shiro out of the rags, out of the tight fighting suit, his fingers traced hundreds of scars – a wide pink line crossing Shiro’s face in halves. His right arm was absent, replaced with an adamantium prosthetic. What have they done to him to manage to inflict a permanent damage to his body?

Shiro’s eyebrows knit in slight confusion.

 

“I made him better,” she says, a hint of pride in her voice. “He is stronger and faster than ever before. I’ve increased his durability.”

 

Despite him denying her acknowledgment and gratitude, despite him opposing her, she is still proud of his each and every achievement, each victory over her robeasts. Of course, none of her creations can kill him; he is indeed her one and only Champion, who has never disappointed her.

She has taken a year out of Shiro’s life, exchanging it for nightmares that do not stop when he wakes up, for fear and hatred from other humans who have met him during the time when he’s been the Champion.

She reaches forward, putting his bangs out of his face. Now the expression on Shiro’s face is almost familiar – it’s loving and excited – and Keith decides that he hates it even more. He’s exhausted, aching, beaten up – and yet he flinches from her touch. She shakes her head.

 

“Your powers are quite interesting too. Although underutilized, so much lost potential. When the Champion surrenders and I’m done with him, I can show you how to properly use them.”

“He will never surrender.”

“Oh, he will. Unfortunately, now that he reverted back to his silly human antics, he has a huge weakness. He’s compassionate. The Champion loves you. And he will always try to save you, even if it means coming straight into my hands.”

“He’s not the Champion. His name is Shiro,” Keith spits it into the yellow-eyed Shiro’s face through his gritted teeth. “You will never lay your hands on him.”

“Sooner or later. And one day he will come back to me. It’s inevitable.” She replies nonplussed, borderline bored, and gets up.

 

His mind is an open slate to her, and in some wicked glee she shapeshifts back and forth into his dad, into Kolivan, Regris, into Allura, Hunk, Pidge, Lance, Matt, Coran, into himself, standing in from of him like a distorted reflection. A lean black-haired boy, covered from head to toe in an attempt to avoid a possibility of an accidental touch.

But her most recurring and favorite form is, of course, Shiro.

It’s Keith’s fault that he has ended up here. He tried to cover the team, borrowed powers from Hunk to form force fields, but Zarkon has been too strong – he cut through it like a sheet of food film. And so, Keith jumped off their plane, staggering him just enough for Allura to open a portal and let them escape.

When the doors slide to the sides, he prays, he begs every god known to him.

Gods laugh at him, and Shiro walks into the room, without his helmet, his gaze determined and cold. His arm is activated, blazing pink. Before he can attack, she grabs Keith by his hair and pulls him up.

 

“Shiro, no,” Keith cries out, but he doesn’t spare him a glance, all his attention on his own duplicate.

 

For a moment, yellow-eyed Shiro’s form becomes a blur, a thick liquid; it reconfigures and becomes a tall slouching woman with long uncombed hair. She breathes out a quiet “Champion”.

 

“I spared his life, see?” she gestures towards Keith, who struggles to twist out of her strong hands, but fails as his broken leg bursts in flames of pain in a protest. “He can go. No one will stop him. You have my word. He is free. If you stay.”

 

When Shiro doesn’t reply straight away, Haggar clicks her fingers, and Keith feels an invisible tug, which raises him in the air.

Keith jerks to get in between them, but Haggar’s powers hold him tight. Shiro lets out a sigh and his adamantium arm dims, letting her put on the special power blocking cuffs. The second the cuffs are fastened, Haggar drops all the pretenses and rushes to him.

 

“Is it adamantium in your skull? Or you have learned some new tricks? I can’t read your thoughts anymore,” she says with exasperated adoration.

 

She tries to cup his face, but he avoids her touch.

 

“Let Keith go,” he demands, “we had a deal.”

 

Haggar casts a brief annoyed look at Keith.

 

“He will try to get you out. I’m not stupid, my dear Champion, I know what kind of powers he has. He’s my guarantee.”

“Honevra, you promised.”

 

Something flickers in her eyes.

 

“What if you don’t hold to your promise? What if you leave again?”

“I won’t. You have my word,” his face softens.

 

Keith wants to shout, wants to fight out of this, he can feel tears streaming down his face, and as they reach his nose and lips, they prickle from salt.

She extends her arms to him, and Shiro allows her to embrace him. However, as soon as she touches him, Shiro’s face scrunches in agony. She caresses his cheek – Shiro yells in pain.

Haggar rapidly steps back, and they both watch in horror how Shiro turns white as a sheet and then sickly blue, how the patches of his skin shrivel and rot, baring the bone – then bones crumble to dust.

Screaming, she drops to her knees and scoops handfuls of ashes – without propping of her powers, Keith also falls to his knees, causing a pang of sharp pain in his leg.

Livid, she gets up, cleaning a pile of dust with a wave of her hand.

 

“KOLIVAN!”

 

With another jerky movement of her arms, the said man enters the room holding his throat – trying to break the invisible chokehold.

 

“Do you think your little mind tricks will work on me? The greatest hopes and fears, huh? Well, two can play this game; prepare to live the rest of your feeble life surrounded by your greatest fears. Good thing it’ll be really short, right? I’ll kill you and then I will make that little kitten of yours into my robeast and we’ll see who kills whom. Oh, I mean I will see. You won’t.”

 

She tosses Kolivan at the walls, blocks his weak attempts to counterattack with ease and laughs. She doesn’t notice Keith crawling, biting his lips not to let out a sound.

 

“He will be unstoppable. The Champion will be forced to kill him. And then he will return to me. Or be weak and die.”

“I told you, you won’t be able to see him ever again,” before she can understand what is going on, Keith rips off his glove with his teeth and plants his palm on her bare neck.

 

Feeling a flow of powers, he blocks her limbs, so she can’t push him away and break the contact.

Memories, feelings, thoughts, life forces of ten thousand years – he receives it all. He feels powerful, he feels omnipotent – and so-so lost. How can a human being withstand ten thousand years? Watch his relatives and friends, cities, countries, civilizations grow old and die, feel ancient, feel empty, feel that the only thing that can somehow – anyhow – feel that growing hungry void inside is the Voltron. How? Why? He knows, he knows how and why, but he doesn’t remember. He doesn’t remember the faces of the people he loved. He doesn’t remember his own name. Yet he can do anything. He can be the king, he can end the wars, the diseases, the catastrophes, the death itself – but why is he so indifferent? Why human pain annoys him? Like the tap that hasn’t been closed, constant drops of water. Tip. Tip. Tip. Tip. They all ask for something and they refuse to believe in you the moment you don’t deliver. You hear their thoughts. Their hopeful, pathetic, evil, petty thoughts. Every single one. Of seven billion. Once you had a husband. A son. Or was it a dream? Once you died. Or was it a dream?

There was one. He wasn’t a dream. He could withstand anything. He could stay with you forever. But they took him away.

Keith chokes on the deep feeling of resentment, abandonment, the sheer anger and grief – he knows how that feels.

He loathes her – and yet he pities her.

His mother left him. He has sent his father into a coma. Accidentally – he just hugged him in his sleep. He can’t touch anyone without hurting them. He can’t touch anyone without killing them.

He has been alone his whole life.

Before he has met…

 

“Shiro,” he cries into the crook of his neck, “Shiro, I’m so sorry, I got overwhelmed, there was so much… so much…”

“It’s okay,” he pulls him even closer, “I know, Keith, I know. It’s ended. You’re safe now.”

“Did I...?”

“She’s alive. You knocked her out, but she’s alive. Allura will deal with her.”

 

There’s a flow of new energy – bright and healthy and warm, and Keith realizes he touches Shiro, but when he tries to withdraw, the latter only strengthens his hold.

 

“Wait, don’t…”

“It’s okay. I regenerate, remember?”

 

Even enhanced after Haggar’s modifications, his regeneration still isn’t fast enough.

With this kind of power they can easily win Zarkon. They can do anything!

 

“At what price?”

“But it’s true. We have her, so I can recharge and…”

“Get lost in her broken mind?”

 

The leg hurts, as the bones are being repaired. He smells. His clothes are all dirty and rugged.

Keith sees his own face.

He is younger. Angrier. Scared.

He is slightly older. Slightly happier.

He is worried, he is sick, he is determined, he is proud, he is annoyed, he is calm, he is sleeping, he is eating, he is whooping, he flies, using his powers for fun for the first time, he is scared, he trains, he fights, he argues, he is in awe, he goofs off, he rolls his eyes, he reads with a pencil behind his ear.

He smiles. Wide, contended, showing his teeth. Knowingly. Can’t help himself. Amused. Ruefully. Through tears. Smugly. Peacefully.

So many memories of him smiling.

When his leg is healed, Shiro gets up, offering him a hand – the adamantium one.

Keith takes his hand and doesn’t let go.


End file.
